Cool shot. I love the sand labyrinth! Where was this?
Throwback to June 1998 at Creation Festival East. This is where I first met Jeeves (on the left in the yellow glasses). Katt was one of my earliest online friends and this was the first time we met in person. I wore fun hats at the time. As you can see, we were all pretty cool.
I was interning at Teen Mania Ministries at the time and in lieu of going on a mission trip that summer, Matt (in the white shirt) and I road tripped to a few music festivals to promote Acquire The Fire events. Jeeves was considering the internship and I think meeting us helped convince him. Sorry? 🤣
I also hit it off really well with Luke (in the red shirt). We ran into him at a couple of the festivals we went to. I think he was in a band named Little Flock. Unfortunately, I lost track of him in the following years.
Original photo by Jeeves
🍿 Watched Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and enjoyed it. Loved seeing James Acaster in it; he’s one of my favorite comedians. It wasn’t quite as good as Afterlife, though maybe that’s because this didn’t hit in the feels as much.
Hahah, perfect.
Take a few minutes to watch this delightful, hand-made miniatures film, Wreckhouse, by Marina Minis
Want to watch: “Will AI Also Remember the Days of Slavery?,” a lecture by Charles Mudede
I got an Aranet4 CO2 sensor at the end of last year. My home is usually around 600ppm, which is decent. I turned on one gas burner on the stove and it quickly jumped to 1300 (poor). Opening a window and turning on a fan brought it back to about 1000. Ventilation is important!
Have questions about HTML/CSS? Join the Front End Study Hall hosted by @artlung@xoxo.zone on Zoom next Wednesday, April 24!
For funk, you might dig Vulfpeck, The Beautiful Game. The whole album is great, but “Dean Town” and “Conscious Club” are a good taste.
Music Monday: London Grammar, “Strong.” Blown away by her voice every time.
Bookmarked: indiebookclub version 0.1.2 launched
🤣 that's amazing
Yeah, last October apparently. Ambient, synth-y vibes. I'm really enjoying it! https://finechina.bandcamp.com/album/eyes-in-the-water
It’s Bandcamp Friday! 100% of purchases go to the artists today. I picked up Sucré, Starkisser; Starflyer 59, Vanity; and Fine China, Eyes in the Water and Trees at Night
Thanks, Joe. I’m grateful for for your friendship! Also very good point, I had not considered that it would have taken some other mysterious method to bring us together if it hadn’t been Twitter shortly before its demise. :)
Mark: That’s a good question that I realize I didn’t touch on in the post. COVID mortality is definitely down since 2020, which is good (though could be improved). I am more concerned about long-term health issues like disability, chronic illness, and opportunistic infections due to repeatedly damaged immune systems. Research is increasingly showing that each infection increases the risk for long-term issues, regardless of whether the initial symptoms were mild. A recent one, “Experiences of Canadians with long-term symptoms following COVID-19,” showed that of people infected 3 times, 38% were reporting long-term symptoms. CDC has said that of US adults infected, 19% report long-term symptoms.
I don’t usually follow the number of COVID deaths closely, though I hear about them from COVID-conscious people especially during the surges. I think during this winter surge we just came out of, there were 1-2k people dying per week for many weeks in the US. That’s an improvement from past years, but not an acceptable new normal, in my opinion. Thousands more were hospitalized and some percentage of those infections will develop long-term issues.
I usually follow the levels of virus in wastewater more closely, via Dr. Hoerger’s pmc19.com/data and wastewaterscan.org. Since we don’t have good testing these days, wastewater levels are about the best stand-in we have for current levels of transmission. There’s a video on his site describing the methodology in more detail, but I like how he calculates the chances that anyone in X number of people is infectious, as well as comparing current levels to the historical levels. This last winter was the second highest levels we’ve had in the US, next to Omicron. There are many times in the year when wastewater levels are higher than in 2020.
I feel we are in a worse place than 2020 since most people don’t know these things and thus, somewhat understandably, don’t take any precautions. The virus spreads and mutates like wild.
Happy to discuss more, whether here or via email.
Currently reading: The Free People's Village by (ISBN 9781646143306)
Finished reading: The Fifth Season by (ISBN 9780316229302)
Bookmarked: 10 Principles of Disability Justice